Kenny MacAskill supports abuse law in Scotland

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill. Picture: Julie Bull

GARETH ROSE

00:00Sunday 01 September 2013

MINISTERS have indicated that they will introduce a Scottish version of a law which allows women to find out if a new partner has a history of domestic violence.

A pilot scheme of Domestic Abuse Protection Orders – known as Clare’s Law, after Clare Wood, who was murdered by her partner George Appleton – in four forces in England and Wales is to end this month. Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill has told senior police officers that he will back its adoption in Scotland if the outcome is positive.

The Association of Scottish Police Superintendents (ASPS) has been campaigning for the protection orders to be deployed north of the Border to combat a dramatic rise in domestic abuse over the past decade.

The orders require men with a history of violence in the home to disclose previous convictions and officers also want a secondary provision in which they are able to share information about known abusers with potential victims, even though this may breach data protection laws.

In a letter to ASPS, ­MacAskill said he was watching the pilots in Gwent, Wiltshire, Nottinghamshire and Greater Manchester.

“I welcome strongly your commitment and that of your colleagues to tackling domestic abuse,” the justice secretary said. “These types of crimes are completely unacceptable in any civilised society and the effects are devastating not only for the victim but for their families too.

“The Scottish Government takes the issue of domestic abuse and all forms of violence very seriously indeed and is committed to tacking this abhorrent behaviour, which casts such a pall over the lives of individuals and communities.

“I share your view that the responsibility for change lies squarely with the perpetrator and never with the victim.”

Meanwhile, the disgraced MSP Bill Walker, who was convicted of domestic abuse offences against his ex-wives, faces having his Holyrood ­wages curtailed by the Scottish Parliament.

His colleagues will consider whether they can impose the sanction on Walker when they return to parliament this week, a Holyrood spokesman said.

Walker, 71, of Alloa, Clackmannanshire, has refused to quit his seat, despite the outrage over his conviction of 23 assault charges against his three ex-wives and a step-daughter. He will be sentenced this month.

Yesterday, it emerged that Holyrood presiding officer, ­Tricia Marwick, has instructed officials to look at the Scotland Act and advise the parliament’s corporate body on members’ pay and conditions.

“Officials are looking at the issue of the extent to which a member who is a serving a custodial jail sentence should continue to be paid,” a parliament spokesman said.

It will be considered by the parliament’s corporate body on Thursday. The Scotland Act gives parliament the power to set out pay provision, meaning changes could be made without referring to Westminster.

Police Scotland has made tackling domestic abuse a priority, setting up a specialist task force up of 25 officers. However, recent figures revealed thousands of convicted abusers are going unpunished each year, with just one in ten jailed and a third receiving nothing more than a warning.

Chief Superintendent David O’Connor, president of Asps, said: “Domestic abuse in all its forms is unacceptable and we must find new ways of removing this from society. The onus should be placed on people with a history of ­domestic abuse related convictions to be up front with ­potential new partners.”

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.